This is the last of the Jeff Hawke stories from Junior Express weekly and it is clear that the editors still did not consider that they had the right formula to satisfy their young readers . The first two stories had Jeff as the central character with a young sidekick with whom the readers could identify. The next story “ The space frontier” featured Bobby Agar and his friend Penny as much more proactive characters. In this last one , which is really in the school story tradition ( a kind of Jennings in space) the boys are the main characters and Jeff becomes a somewhat peripheral adult.

The story opens with Jeff and Ricky visiting Mike Cranley , the designer of Earth’s latest and biggest space station. Here they are introduced , not only to a scale model of the new station but also to Cranley’s colleague, the astronomer professor Bodwin. The next day Jeff and Ricky head back to space headquarters where they discover that a ferry-ship returning from the existing space satellite is in trouble. Jeff talks down the pilot, the ferry manages to land safely and its passengers disembark. Among them is Bobby Agar, the boy whose adventures were featured in the last story. Here to meet him are a group of his old school mates including a boy called Scrubby who will feature large in the forthcoming story. The boys also get to meet Jeff Hawke

who tells them that a Space school for cadets is to be opened on the  satellite and that those who pass a preliminary exam will be eligible to enroll. All apply for the space-school , but Scrubby has to lie that he has his guardian’s approval to go into space. His guardian, it transpires, is none other than professor Bodwin, the astronomer, who apparently does not approve of space-travel.   As the boys arrive at the spaceport, Scrubby spots the professor, and in a bid to evade him, hides in one of the cargo crates that are being loaded onto the ferry ship. The other boys board as passengers and the ship takes off with Jeff Hawke at the controls. Too late does the professor realize that his nephew has stowed away. As the flight progresses , Scrubby breaks out of his crate in the cargo hold and as he does so, he knocks over a suspicious object   which begins to tick. Realising that it must be a bomb, he breaks cover and rushes through the ship to the pilot’s cabin to alert Jeff.

Hawke immediately takes charge and manages to eject the bomb through the airlock just seconds before it explodes. On arrival at the space station , Scrubby enjoys brief celebrity for saving the day, but his pleasure is short-lived as the station receives an urgent message from his guardian that he must be returmed to Earth on the next ferry . Once again, and with the collusion of his class mates Scrubby goes AWOL , hidng in one of the station’s many recesses until the ferry has departed. After a search of the remaining freight that accompanied the bomb, a threatening note is found The note demands that the station be evacuated within 24 hours and says that it will be destroyed after that time.

The station commander is anxious to comply, but Jeff, guessing that the ejected bomb, whose mechanism was set off too early by Scrubby , was the device intended to destroy the station, holds his nerve and decides that they will all stay. Part 2 to follow.  Skipper Prossitt

 

17 April 2016

This is the second in our occasional series featuring models of some of the spacecraft that appear in the Jeff Hawke strip. Up until HEIR APPARENT  the  ships changed frequently  , often from story to story,  and Jeff Hawke never acquired anything with which he became synonymous in the way that , say, Dan Dare did with his famous Anastasia.  This was to change after “C day”, when the three great starships, Faith, hope and Charity, became a regular part of the strip. They were capable  of travelling the Solar system and beyond, but their great mass prevented any planetary landing. So each ship was equipped with  landers which enabled crew members to shuttle back and forth to the planetary surface. According to Sydney, the landers had some anti-grav  motors and also a back-up of more conventional rockets ( both situated at the base of the craft.They also possessed an array of searchlights , located at the underside of the dome. The usual crew was about three  or four.  This model was made by one of our club members  with help and direction from Sydney Jordan. Skipper Prossitt

 

The comics fair in Lucca, northern Italy took place last weekend and Sydney was invited as a special guest for the launch of the new Italian edition of the collected Hal Starr strips. The show, which is the biggest in Europe, was very well attended and Italy probably represents Jeff Hawke’s largest fanbase. So Lucca provided an opportunity for many of Sydney’s numerous Italian Jeff Hawke fans to meet the maestro himself. Sydney gave many interviews and talks during the show, and his trip also received coverage in both local press and TV.

And just as Hollywood has its famous boulevard where movie stars are invited to make their mark, so the city of Lucca is now introducing its own “Walk of fame” for stars of the comic book art. Sydney was invited to make his handprints in a wet cast which will later be transferred to the “Walk of fame “ when the actual venue has been decided. It was a well deserved tribute to Sydney for three decades of superb work ( both illustrating and writing) on the Hawke strip. skipper Prossett

 

I miei ringraziamenti a Danilo Zalambani che ha fornito queste foto

3 April 2016

As Sydney is one of of the guests of honour at the prestigious Lucca comics convention this weekend, I thought that this would be a good opportunity to have a look at some of the Italian imprints of the Jeff Hawke stories.There have been quite a few Italian collections of the Hawke material but the most extensive are the Milano libri and the Albi dell’ avventura collections . Milano Libri are published in hardback volumes and are the most comprehensive series spanning the entire sequence of Hawke stories from H1 to H8865. Albi dell’avventura are large format paperback volumes which usually cover just one

Hawke story per volume . They go from H1 to only H 7422 . The latter series are printed a little larger than the Milano libri and for my money they reproduce the strips in slightly higher quality, retaining all the subtleties of Sydney’s fine shading and cross-hatching which tends not to stand up so well in the hardback collection. However, both series are well produced and volumes from both can be found on Italian eBay . Skipper Prossitt

27 March 2016

1981 saw the publication of the Sydney’s story MAILORDER in which Hawke and his crew investigate a strange UFO, which, in a curious echo of the Russian classic Solaris, can make solid objects out of human thoughts and desires. It was also the year of the royal wedding in the UK, an extravaganza which seemed to grip the nation and indeed the world at large. Diana Spencer was fast becoming the most photographed woman in history and she appeared everywhere from magazine covers to TV media. Not to be left out of the zietgeist , Sydney also used her image to create one of the characters in the story, namely Lieutenant Spicer, part of the first team sent to investigate the UFO. The images that Sydney used for the story where those of the young , somewhat awkward and shy Diana, before the designers had turned her into the mirror of fashion.

As a footnote, I first saw this likeness while reading through the Milano libri edition of JH and was delighted to have spotted this connection. But when I checked Hawke’s notes for the same story I noticed that Duncan Lunan had (as usual) seen it first. Skipper Prossitt

20 March 2016

Many comprehensive editions of the Jeff Hawke series  have been published in Italy over the years , notably the Milano Libri editions, and Italian readers are well known for their enthusiasm for Sydney’s work.  In adition to these definitive publications there have also be some curious one-off  Jeff Hawke imprints from Italy. One such is a  book from the late eighties, notable both for its large format   and for its coloured pages.    Its large size ( 24cm by 34cm )  is to accommodate the strip format as it was published in the Italian newspapers ( three strips at a time), and it contains two complete stories; SELENA  and THE COMET’S TALE.  The strips are hand coloured  and some pages,particularly  in SELENA  are quite subtle and pleasing. It also has a unique cover, which is a compilation and re-working  by Franco Grillo of some of Sydney’s interior artwork .  Skipper Prossitt

 

 

 

11 March 16

OVERLORD was an important milestone for the Jeff Hawke strip as it saw the beginning of the long and fruitful collaboration between Sydney and Willie Patterson , a creative partnership which brought about what many readers regard as the “Golden age “ of the strip which lasted until the spring of 1969 when Willie had to give up his work due to ill health.

But OVERLORD also saw another innovation which was to become a hallmark of the strip, namely the introduction of a prologue to the stories in the form of Mephisto and the troll. Sydney remembers that he had been casting about for some device which would create a break between one story and another and yet would form a smooth transition between the end of one and the start of the next.   He and Willie decided that a prologue of some sort was

needed   and Mephisto and the little troll came into being. Mephisto himself   is suave and sophisticated, Shakespearian in his posture and delivery while the troll is the underdog   and is definitely Horatio to Mephisto’s Hamlet. Sydney says that their relationship reflected, in a light-hearted way, that between Willie and himself. Willie, the urbane and sophisticated man of the world, with a refined taste for the good things in life which belied his humble origins, is obviously Mephisto ,while Sydney, in a claim made with a degree of light-hearted disingenuousness , says that he was the downtrodden troll . The Mephisto character in his attitudes owes something to   C S Lewis’ devil -Screwtape , while his physical appearance owes more than a little to Doré’s demonic depictions in his illustrations to Dante’s inferno.

These characters developed as the stories unfolded and their prologues and epilogues ( for they served as both) became also a sort of Greek chorus , commenting on the actions which were about to take place. According to Sydney their misty and amorphous abode is none other than the imagination of the writer and the artist and they can conjure up objects from the stories by merely mentioning them. For instance, in their brief appearance after SURVIVAL , Mephisto has but to mention the wondrous lamp from the next story , when it appears in his hand . Theatrically speaking it is as if they live in the wings , surrounded by props and stage furniture while the stories themselves are enacted on the main stage. Skipper Prossitt

16 February 2016

Following on from part 1 ( in our post from October 2015), we resume our retelling of the story that appeared in Junior express weekly in the autumn of 1955.

Receiving   a message that an alien saucer has landed in Salisbury plain, Jeff and Ricky go to investigate. The saucer has been cordoned off by the military but Jeff decides to go inside. The door is open and he and Ricky investigate the interior. But once inside, they realize they have been caught in a trap ;the door closes and the craft takes off to rendezvous with another alien saucer in orbit. The alien commander Ritka, is delighted when he finds that Jeff Hawke is his prisoner. The two men are held in a “mind ray” as Ritka prepares to take them back to his home planet, Ganus.

Meanwhile, on Earth, the space council has decided to go ahead with ferrying the Earth families up to the space station, despite the saucer threat. Bobby and his family are in the first party to take off   but as the ferry rocket rises above the Earth they are spotted by Ritka, who decides to attack and destroy it before setting off for Ganus. Distracted by the attack on the ferry , Ritka forgets the mind-ray and Jeff seizes his chance and overpowers the alien. The families reach the safety of the satellite  and Jeff also docks the captured saucer here and hands Ritka over to the security officer. We are now introduced     to a new character, Penny, a young girl who befriends Bobby and who together with him explores the space-station.

The satellite is attacked by another saucer but this time the Space station’s missiles score a hit and the alien craft breaks off the fight . Jeff and his companions track its flight path from which they discover that the aliens have their main base on the dark side of the Moon. Jeff decides to lead an attack force to hit the alien HQ but the Earth traitor Verney who has already helped Ritka to escape from the satellite, plans to radio the alien base to warn them of the attack.

Fortunatley his plans are frustrated by Bobby and Penny who unmask him as a spy.

Jeff leads the small attack force of two ships to the moon and he and another crewman take a space –buggy   to search for the base. It is soon discovered and Jeff sends his companion back to his own base to alert the attack force while he keeps the aliens distracted. Under heavy fire form alien guards, Jeff manages to seize a saucer   and with it destroys all but one of the other alien craft which are parked on the ground. Ritka takes the remaining saucer but after a brief dogfight , his craft hits the moon surface and is destroyed. The Earth forces arrive and overcome the remaining aliens.          Skipper Prossitt

4th February 2016

This month saw the publication of Jeff Hawke Cosmos magazine vol.9 no. 3  which represents a huge milestone for the club . The four stories in this issue brings the total number of stories published by the club so far to  one hundred. This is thanks to the tireless efforts of our editor/ publisher  William Rudling without whose energy and vision none of this would have been possible

Skipper Prossitt

24 January 2016

This is the first of an occasional series in which we will show models of the various spacecraft that appear in the Jeff Hawke strip. below are three photographs of the Aristarchus, the ship that Hawke flew to  the Jupiter system in “Overlord”.  More details about the Aristarchus and what inspired Sydney’s design can be found in an article posted her in July 2015.  Skipper Prossit